Book Review: Jessica Valenti's new work

Author is one of the leading experts on the topic, and publishes a newsletter on Substack.

I had the opportunity to read Jessica Valenti’s new book, which I found to be a helpful guide on how to speak about abortion in a Post-Roe world. 

Valenti is one of the nation’s leading young writers and leaders on abortion rights. She publishes a newsletter on Substack called Abortion, Every Day, which monitors the daily developments of both the antiabortion and abortion rights movements. She’s also the author of several other feminist works. Her new title is Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Laws, and the Truths We Use to Win. 

The book reminded me of many previous ones that called for a more thorough understanding of reproductive rights. The most recent example that comes to mind is Robin Marty’s New Handbook for a Post-Roe America: The Complete Guide to Abortion Legality, Access, and Practical Support. Valenti’s work uses a similar tone when explaining the terms used in the modern debate. However, it supplements Marty’s work, published in 2021, with more modern history since the Dobbs decision. 

Valenti delves into the misleading terms that antiabortion politicians and activists use to obfuscate the actual policies that they’re calling for. Terms like consensus are political codes for bans or restrictions on the procedure past a certain point. They’ve also sought to redefine what the term abortion means. When it’s done in life-threatening situations, antiabortion activists have substituted maternal-fetal separation procedures for abortion when discussing it. 

Valenti also correctly refutes the notion that abortion is a controversial procedure for most of the American public. She cites the statistic that 85 percent of citizens think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. 

Much of the media narrative has overshadowed the threat to birth control, her book points out. Many Republicans, either ignorantly or wilfully, have sought to define contraception as a kind of abortion. This has long been a problem as Republicans have debated birth control without actually taking the time to study the issue to the extent that they can distinguish between different forms of reproductive care. 

Valenti establishes that exceptions don’t work. As we’ve seen in Texas, many doctors are unwilling to perform abortions even in dire circumstances where the woman’s life is at risk because they fear prosecution under the Draconian laws that are in place. Politicians like Donald Trump call for exceptions because they feel it’s politically expedient. They never acknowledge the problems of getting doctors not to fear the consequences of performing an abortion in those circumstances. Valenti concludes that chapter by saying that abortion shouldn’t be a matter of who deserves or earned care. 

Valenti emphasized the issue of faulty data with flawed methodology among antiabortion researchers. They’ve linked breast cancer to abortion without any substantive or reliable research to back up the claim. As refuted in the landmark Turnaway Study, conservative analysts have claimed there is a link between depression and abortions. 

While the book is a concise and helpful summary, the one thing I wish it had more of was the historical context of pre-Roe regulations and politics. Valenti makes a valid point that no book can encompass the totality of abortion as a subject. Entire books can and have been dedicated to what happened before Roe, after it, and following its demise. 

But briefly mentioning what came before the contemporary era and how things have changed in a paragraph or two would have helped when commenting on how it is now and how it should be addressed. When Valenti makes a point about teens being targeted by antiabortion leaders, it would have been worth describing in detail the case of Becky Bell or the prolonged assault on the rights of teenagers to get the reproductive care they needed. What did previous activists run into when combatting those things? That would have been worth exploring. 

I recommend reading the work, as it comes from someone as familiar with abortion politics in the last few years as one can be. I look forward to the updated version of the book in future years and more of her work in her newsletter.